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Presentation Skills and Why It’s Important to Have Structure and a Process

It’s not everyday you step up to a panel and host a presentation. For some people public speaking can be a breeze and for others it can be their greatest fear. Regardless if your presentation skills are on the weaker or stronger side, it’s important to have structure. When you have a game plan of what you’re going to present, you’ll be able to focus on other areas to improve such as speech, posture or even building confidence.

Record and Watch:

It may feel awkward at first to record a video of yourself but it’ll be the best presentation tool to use. This method is important because it gives you plenty of resources to critique your flaws. For instance, one common habit people have when they present can be the repetitiveness of saying “umm”. If you fall under this category, how is it possible for you to notice this? You don’t! That’s because you don’t pay attention to these types of things. Also, watching videos of yourself allows you to see what things you may have done well, such as having great posture or even being able to see if your presentation had structure. Athletes, for example, watch videos of themselves all the time. Although they are not watching videos of themselves speaking, they can still learn a lot about themselves when they watch how they play against their opponents.

Practice Makes Perfect:

Practice! Practice! Practice! There’s no better way to prepare for a presentation than hearing and repeating information out loud. Retaining all the information that you are presenting is key because then you can focus more on the important tasks such as the delivery. You want to be able to produce a good flow that allows engagement with the clients. When the clients become more interactive, it creates opportunities for you to educate and simplify topics that they may be confuse of.

Learn From Others:

Whether it’s watching videos of other people online or attending presentations, it’s good to take notes on what they did well and what they did not. You can use these notes as a guide to prevent yourself from making any mistakes they did so that your own speech is outstanding. It doesn’t matter which public speaker videos you watch because everyone has their own style in presenting. Choose a few things you like from each video and incorporate them into your speech. Also, try having a mentor or coach critique your own presentation because they can give you insight on your pros and cons that you might not notice.